


Nighthawks and Shrikes

by crocs (orphan_account)



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Dancing, F/M, First Kiss, One Shot, early seasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 00:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21467137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/crocs
Summary: So they dance for a bit — well, they’re swaying when it gets to the end of the album, but that’s only because it’s nearly midnight and they’re kind of tired. It’s — and Foreman’s pretty sick of using this word, but it’s nice.(Early seasons. Foreman and Cameron spend the night before a medical conference in each other's company.)
Relationships: Allison Cameron/Eric Foreman
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	Nighthawks and Shrikes

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own _House MD_ or anything recognisable within.

_Ah, but I’m flying like a bird to you now._

— ‘Shrike’, Hozier

_That’s how the part you don’t see looks._

— ‘Nighthawks: after Edward Hopper’s painting’, Wolf Wondratshek

* * *

“Hey, you hear that?” Cameron asks.

Foreman frowns as she twists around in the wicker love-seat. “The waves?”

“…Yeah,” says Cameron, turning back, pulling away from him. She sighs, looking out at the horizon, where the sun’s dipped beneath. Faint streaks of orange and amber still dot the sky, but they’re fleeting. “That’s _it_. No cars, no pagers — just us and the ocean.”

“It’s nice,” Foreman comments. “Pretty place for a medical conference, at least.”

“Pretty place anyway,” Cameron says, quietly. “…Do you ever think about just running?”

“Running?” Foreman chuckles. He tilts his head. “Girl, you need to sleep sometime. Soon.”

“I _did_ drive up here,” she agrees. She yawns. “Hey, do you think we’ll have time to go to the beach tomorrow?”

Foreman’s face scrunches up. “I don’t know when Chase —”

“— Just you and me,” Cameron elaborates. She shrugs when Foreman raises an eyebrow. Her bare skin — tank top — brushes against his chest. She’s warm. “We never hang out anymore.”

“We’re hanging out _now,”_ he offers, but he knows it’s not what Cameron means. He dodges out of the way of a limp throw pillow aimed half-heartedly at his arm, grinning. “If we get back early, maybe. It’d be a waste of being beach-front, anyway.”

She nods. He watches Cameron watch the lapping waves on the shore in the low, orange light.

They’re alone, in this small beach house, here on Rhode Island. The sand — not five feet away from where they are on the veranda — isn’t private; it’s the middle of the night, though, so Foreman can easily pretend.

So can Cameron.

Chase is shacked up in some hotel room somewhere.

House had faked laryngitis and has roped Wilson into ‘looking after’ him, so neither of them are at the talk.

Cuddy isn’t physically here in New England, either, but she’s here enough that she managed to fix himself and Cameron up in this place. She’d owed Foreman a favour.

She hadn’t owed Cameron, though — but Cameron had called Foreman, angry over the frankly disgusting room the conference had given her. It seemed like the obvious thing to do — the house he was in had two rooms, after all. If they had _three_, Chase would be here too.

That’s what Foreman told himself, at least.

“Thanks for this,” Cameron says, as if she can hear what Foreman’s thinking about. Now that he’s said that, though, she probably can. “This is nice.”

“I just said that.” Another pillow. “Hey, I can kick you off of this seat if I want.”

“I was going to get a drink, anyway,” Cameron says, cracking a grin, swinging her legs over.

She stands, arching her back. Cameron doesn’t have eyes in the back of her head, so Foreman looks at the way the muscles work as she draws herself up, tying her hair in a loose ponytail.

And then she looks over her shoulder, at Foreman’s unabashed stare.

It’s like something passes between them — some _vibe_ he’s not entirely sure he’s felt towards Cameron before. In that second — in that moment — in the middle of the night — Foreman’s not entirely sure _how_ to feel.

“Do you want something?” she suddenly asks. “A drink, I mean.”

“Whatever’s in the fridge,” Foreman says, after a moment. He loses the staring match, eyes flirting towards the shoreline.

Cameron nods. She heads inside.

He breathes out and, once he’s sure she’s not looking, watches her go. As he does, he relaxes, spreading out across the cushioned seat. It’s cold without Cameron next to him, looking up at the stars.

With a groan, Foreman rises — pushes himself off of the seat. It’s harder than it looked when Cameron did it. His shoulders complain once he’s upright; his feet feel like clay as he ambles across the deck.

Foreman squats down beneath the turntable, getting out the plastic crate of vinyl records and putting them on the outside dining table. He runs his fingers over the cracked cover spines. _Frank Sinatra. Eddie Money. Glen Campbell. _

_Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. _Jackpot.

Foreman flips the cover over between his two hands as he approaches the player. He lifts up the tonearm and slips the record onto the spindle, putting the stylus down on the furthermost outside groove.

Cameron emerges as he flips the switch on the machine. She presses a beer into Foreman’s hand and tilts her head as the record gets going.

“Is this —?”

“_If you need me, call me,_” Foreman answers, singing along to her laugh. He puts his drink down, slinging an arm over her. “_…No matter how far, don’t worry, baby_ — dance with me?”

“I don’t dance,” Cameron protests, but she splutters out another laugh and takes his hand when he offers it to her, spinning her around.

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough turns to You’ve Got What It Takes and that turns to a song that Foreman can’t sing along to because it’s been years since he’s heard the songs — Nana’s Christmas parties, maybe, where all she’d play was Gaye and The Supremes.

Good times.

So they dance for a bit — well, they’re swaying when it gets to the end of the album, but that’s only because it’s nearly midnight and they’re kind of tired. It’s — and Foreman’s pretty sick of using this word, but it’s nice.

Still, it means that when the only thing from the jukebox is a crackle, Cameron’s head is on Foreman’s chest.

It means that whatever ‘vibe’ he’d felt is electric in the air before it fades away, leaving a stopped record and the tides at the horizon.

They roll to a halt as the last beat plays, like little wind up toys running out of juice.

Cameron’s right hand slips out of his, first, but it’s more that it falls to her side rather than being snatched away.

Foreman does the same with his other hand, dropping it from her back but still keeping it there.

Cameron leans back. It makes sense, really — they’re too close for nothing else to happen, and they’re just friends, really. She uncaps her beer with the opener on her keychain, opens his when he hands it out to her.

“We, uh,” says Cameron, not looking at him. “We might want to hit the beach tonight, if we can’t go tomorrow.”

“Tonight,” Foreman repeats. He looks up at the sky. _Yeah, still dark_. “I mean, at least we won’t have to walk that far.”

Cameron shakes her head. Her hair is kind of wavy from the sea salt air.

“Oh, come on,” she insists, putting the beer back down on the coffee table. “It’ll be fun!”

Foreman huffs, rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

“Okay,” he says, and that’s all it takes, apparently, because Cameron is already searching for flashlights in the kitchen.

After a moment, she emerges, feet out of shoes already. She swaps his beer out for a pocket-size one, bright blue. He wiggles out of his own shoes, bemused, leaving them on the porch.

There’s a set of stairs from the deck leading right to the sand, so that’s the path they take.

He turns his light on as Cameron does.

…If House were here, Foreman knows, he would stick his own underneath his chin and make ‘scary’ faces. He’s not, though, so the whole experience isn’t as annoying.

The slope down to the water isn’t too steep. The sand is soft against his feet.

Foreman and Cameron meander down to the water in near silence. When they get to it, Cameron doesn’t stop — she pulls off her jeans, lifts them up high in the air as she wades into the water.

Her face contorts as the tide ripples around her. She’s not quite neck deep, but it’s near enough that when she comes further back up her tank top sticks to her — well.

“Is it warm?” Foreman asks. He shines his light on her face. She squints, face still bunched up. “I mean…”

“Nope!” she yells, throwing a hand in the air. “Come on in!”

“Oh, now you’ve really sold me,” Foreman shouts, nodding. He sits himself down at the very edge of the coast, stretching out. It’s mostly for show. “I think I’ll stay right where I am.”

“You got me to dance,” Cameron points out. Her hair elastic has floated away, leaving it half-flowing in the water and half down, wet and hanging in front of her face. She slicks it back so she can look at him properly. “I’ll get you in the water. Fair’s fair!”

“What if I say I can’t swim?”

“Then you’d be a liar,” Cameron shouts back, grinning. “Remember when we all went to the bar and you got drunk and started bragging about your swimming certificates?”

“Uh, no, I think I was drunk, so — can’t remember, sorry. _Puh _— Cameron!”

Cameron looks entirely unrepentant for someone who’s just splashed someone.

Then she does it again.

Foreman does it back and she yelps — _Foreman, what are you, five?_ — and suddenly he’s with her, swept away in the surf, sodden clothes sticking to his skin.

“If Chase were here,” she says, in-between their completely serious fight, “would you be treading water with him?”

“You don’t know what I do in my spare time,” Foreman says, and then — suddenly — they’re kissing.

He threads his fingers through her wet hair as Cameron’s lips brush against his, just long enough for him to taste her lip-balm — strawberry — and feel the shiver of her against him, her in the deep.

Foreman closes his eyes. He presses his forehead to hers with the hand cupping the back of her head.

They stay like that for a moment, drinking each other in, like there’s nothing around them, no sea, no gulls, no beach, eyes closed, chests fluttering like butterflies.

Then Cameron rocks backwards, a little bit — just enough for Foreman to surge forward and press his own against hers firmly. Her tongue dances across his lower lip, but Foreman’s comfortable enough to keep it how it is. At least, for the moment.

When they break again — because they have to, for air — Cameron looks around, and then down at her feet. Her mouth opens, closes. She’s not sure what to say. Neither is Foreman, really, because he didn’t come out here to woo Cameron; he hadn’t even thought of her, like that, kissing her, until he’d done it.

And now he couldn’t really stop.

“It’s cold,” Foreman repeats, cutting through it with as big of a knife he can manage. “We should probably get back.”

“…Yeah,” Cameron says. She cracks an unsure smile. “Separate bedrooms, right?”

Foreman blinks. “Unless you want to —”

“Well,” Cameron states, at the same time. “We could —”

They look at each other. Cameron bites her lip. “I would want to. If you want to.”

“Yeah, I do,” Foreman says. “So. Let’s share. If… that’s what you’re talking about.”

“Let’s just go,” Cameron says, shaking her head, exasperated. He gets the feeling.

And they do.

It’s raining the next morning, but at six-thirty — the time they have to wake up to get to the conference — Foreman wakes up next to Cameron, and Cameron wakes up next to Foreman, and they end up getting up at seven because Cameron pulls an old magazine from the bedside table and starts reading the articles out loud and he chimes in when he can because half of these people are totally unbelievable and the other half House would want as his patients.

It might as well be sunny after all.

In the back of his head, Foreman worries about what House will say, once they’re back in Jersey. Some pithy comment, maybe.

He can see Cameron’s anxious about it too. He tries not to show it. He tries to weather her, shelter her instead.

But if there’s anyone that doesn’t need sheltering, it’s Allison Cameron.

So they talk about it, what they’re going to do. _We can’t just ignore it,_ Foreman says, and what he doesn’t say is how he doesn’t want to even if they had to.

Cameron seems to understand. She does understand. He knows she does, and she knows he does.

At the end of it all, House is faking laryngitis three states away, Chase is at the hotel already and Foreman is happy right where he is.

And, until he has to leave, he’s willing to pretend he doesn’t have to, just to see Cameron next to him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
